Heartland Express

Russ Gerdin, purchased Scott’s Transportation in 1978 and renamed it Heartland Express. The company grew rapidly under Gerdin and his debt-free philosophy. Heartland quickly established a reputation for reliable service among the industry. While keeping early major customers like Whirlpool and Amana, Heartland added others, including Sears and Kellogg that would also maintain long-term relationships with the company.

By 1982, the company was bringing in nearly $11 million in annual sales, and, by keeping its costs low, the company managed to achieve net income of more than $1 million. Heartland Express went public in 1986.

Gerdin made a new move in 1989 to solidify the company's standing when it began converting its entire fleet to new 53-foot trailers, the first in the industry to do so. The conversion of the company's nearly 1,500 trailers was completed in 1990. By that year, the company's fleet had grown to 525 tractors, including 235 new cabover tractors, an increase of nearly 100 over the previous year.

To further expansion in that region, Heartland started up Heartland Distribution Services (HDS), a subsidiary concentrating on short-haul traffic, in 1992, and opened a distribution center in Atlanta, Georgia to service the new subsidiary. By the end of that year, HDS had already outgrown that facility, and the company bought a new, larger center in Atlanta. Also in 1992, Heartland combined its LaMonte, Missouri and Dyersburg, Tennessee centers into a new terminal located in St. Louis, Missouri designed to accommodate the company's short-haul growth in the region.

Today, Michael Gerdin, son of Russ and Ann, is the President of the company and carrying on the vision his father started.